North Carolina legislators reconsider some dangerous provisions of polluters’ wish list H.B.600 after public outcry but persist with others

Vote expected next week on bill prohibiting cleaner technology for handling industrial hog waste in violation of federal civil rights law, handcuffing DEQ from properly regulating pollution, and suppressing local voices

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— North Carolina House Bill 600, Regulatory Reform Act, remains a polluters’ wish list as it heads back to the N.C. House after public outcry led the N.C. Senate to remove a dangerous provision that would have done away with basic clean water protections.  The bill still contains several problematic provisions, including a provision that violates the federal Clean Water Act and federal civil rights laws.

“As currently proposed, this bill would be a disaster for North Carolinians,” said Geoff Gisler, program director at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Communities near industrial hog operations and in the path of unnecessary methane gas pipelines need better protections—not to be targeted for more pollution from these industries.”

A provision in Section 12 of the bill would prohibit the state from requiring the hog industry to use cleaner technology for handling hog sewage, leaving in place the current practice of spraying feces and urine onto fields where it contaminates drinking water supplies and harms people’s health. This practice disproportionately impacts Black, Latino, and Native American communities. Despite this, the legislation would also prevent the state from considering or limiting the cumulative harm from existing industrial hog operations and would limit the state’s ability to deny permits or add conditions to permits to comply with federal civil rights or water protection laws. Following a long pattern of environmental injustice, this provision is the latest move by the N.C. legislature to shield the politically powerful hog industry from being held accountable by the people and communities of North Carolina harmed by its pollution for many decades.

Another provision that remains is Section 7.1, which would sharply curtail the state and people of North Carolina’s ability to weigh in on large federal projects with big impacts to our communities and the water we drink. For example, this provision would limit the ability of residents of Alamance and Rockingham counties to prevent harms to their communities from the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate project. Although this provision was recently narrowed to apply only to projects involving the distribution or transmission of energy or fuel, it remains incredibly problematic, and will prevent DEQ from applying permit limitations necessary to assure that these projects comply with state water quality requirements.

Introduced in the N.C. Senate and then withdrawn after public outcry, a proposed provision to the bill would have prevented the state from imposing limits on toxic PFAS, and 1,4 dioxane pollution as well as other dangerous chemicals and ignored the health and safety of the people and communities of North Carolina. Hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians are suffering from exposure to these toxic chemicals from pollution by Chemours, DuPont, upstream waste dischargers and industry, and other sources. This provision also would have continued to place the burden and harm of toxic pollution onto North Carolina’s communities instead of making polluters stop pollution at its source as required by law.